The GUI of OOo is bad, worse, worst… Just an unusable, old style design which fits in the area of Windows 95 but not in today’s times.
The people behind OOo know that as well and try to change that. A prototype can now be seen in the Renaissance Wiki. This is just some very early prototype which isn’t polished at all but discussions are already heated on the Sun blog. The reason? Many people don’t like the ribbon style.
I do.
At work we use Microsoft Office 2007 and I really like the interface. I never used an Office very extensively as I mostly did and do other things on a computer:
- LaTeX for longer work, which has to look good
- programming, which doesn’t involve an office suite
- pcb layout
- web design
As that I don’t know how to find functions in those old cluttered menus and bars of Microsoft Office before 2007 or OpenOffice. With this using the new MS Office 2007 ribbon GUI is really fun. I still need to learn a few things, but overall I think it is easier to use and I hate the parts of Office 2007 that haven’t been converted to ribbon style (yet?). I agree, that everyone needs to re-learn how to use it.
So using this idea as a starting point for OOo works good for me. I have to agree, though, that it would even be better to come up with something even better. Yet I think that better can’t mean just cleaning up the old menus and toolbars.
A new concept for complex Office applications is needed.
